Trump judge dismisses challenge to strict Florida voter registration law as ‘manufactured by meddlers’

In a loss for voters, a federal judge this week dismissed a challenge to a Florida voter registration policy that civil rights groups say disproportionately impacts Black applicants and other people of color. 

U.S. District Judge Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said the nonprofit groups Florida Rising Together and Florida Rising lacked standing to sue. 

In the first lines of her 34-page order, Moe said the lawsuit was “manufactured by meddlers” who she said are “complaining” about the policy.

“Although nobody but Florida Rising Together, Inc. and Florida Rising, Inc. comes to this Court complaining about Florida’s Election Code, these two corporations demand that Florida’s Election Code be enjoined, at least to the extent that it requires evidence of identity when federally-required information does not match the federally-required database,” Moe wrote.

“Corporations cannot vote in Florida’s elections, so of course Florida Rising Together, Inc. and Florida Rising, Inc. do not claim that Florida’s voter identification laws prevented them from voting,” she added.

Florida’s “exact match” voter registration policy requires an applicant’s identifying information such as their name, address, driver’s license number and last four digits of their Social Security number to be exactly the same as what is listed in state or federal databases.

The civil rights groups contend the requirements unlawfully disenfranchise eligible applicants due to minor errors, like typos or misread handwriting, and that the burden falls disproportionately on voters of color. 

They said in a complaint last year that the policy is preventing nearly 80,000 otherwise eligible Florida applicants from registering to vote in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act as well as the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

“Of the 79,447 applicants whose registrations have been held up due to the Exact Match Protocol, only 9% identify as white,” the groups wrote. “By comparison, more than 55% of Florida’s registered voters identify as white. Meanwhile, Black and Latino registrants are disproportionately being kept off the rolls due to the Exact Match Protocol.”

They added, “More than 57% of the registrants on the Exact Match ‘unverified’ list identify as Black or Latino, which is a much higher percentage than their share of the Florida registered voter pool (approximately 33%). Black voter registration applicants are put in “unverified” status at a rate (approximately 32%) nearly three times their share of the registrant pool (approximately 12%).”

The Republican National Committee and Florida’s Republican Party intervened in the case to defend the “exact match” policy. RNC Chair Joe Gruters celebrated Judge Moe’s ruling this week and said the RNC will “keep fighting to defend Florida’s election integrity laws.”

The judge gave the civil rights groups until Oct. 15 to amend their complaint if they wish to continue challenging the policy. Florida Rising did not immediately respond to Democracy Docket’s request for comment.

Maya Bodinson contributed to this report.